Calendars, and electronic calendars in particular, often contain a wealth of information about their owner. For example, an individual may use an electronic calendar to maintain information about his work schedule, his meetings and other appointments, his vacation and business travel plans (including when he will be away, which flights or other transportation he will use, where he can be reached while away, who he may visit while away, etc.), phone calls that need to be made at particular times, and so forth. Examples of electronic calendaring systems include Microsoft Outlook™ 2000, Lotus Organizer™, and Lotus Notes™. Such systems are quite popular among users. “Outlook” is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Lotus Organizer and Lotus Notes are trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation.
Use of electronic calendaring systems for purposes such as scheduling meetings of multiple persons is known in the art. For example, an invitation list may be created for a particular meeting, and a calendaring software application may then use this list to check each invitee's calendar for available time periods. A meeting may then be scheduled during a time period in which all, or some majority, of the invitees has sufficient time available on their calendar. However, it is desirable to more fully exploit the information stored in the calendaring system.
An automated system is described in the Applicants' related patent applications whereby electronic calendar-based engines are used to drive other software applications and agents, such as software agents that respond to e-mail and telephone calls by providing automated responses regarding the recipient's current availability. The automated system maintains a database of dynamically updated contact information for a plurality of people. The automated system accesses the dynamic contact database in order to determine a recipient's current availability. For example, the automated system may determine, utilizing the dynamic contact database, when the person is out of the office and could automatically generate the appropriate responses to incoming e-mails, telephone calls, etc., during the duration that the person is out of the office.
The automated system obtains information about a person's status, such as “in the office”, “out of the office”, “outside working hours”, etc., from the individual's calendar. The automated system then combines this status information with preferences specified by this person that describe how the person could be contacted most immediately, an alternate contact, the frequency with which the person accesses voice mail and/or e-mail, and other information. The combined information obtained from the calendar and the preferences information are either stored in the dynamic contact database or derived real-time.
Users often communicate with one another using an instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging services permit a user to transmit an electronic message via a network, such as the Internet, to another user. Typically, users maintain a listing of people frequently contacted via the instant message service. This listing is displayed on their IM client and is often referred to as a “buddy list”.
The buddy list has function in addition to maintaining a list of frequently contacted users; it is also used to provide information about the users. The buddy list can indicate a user's IM status (e.g., “active”), display user-provided messages (e.g., “I'm in a meeting”), and display system-provided messages (e.g., the amount of time a user is online). A user's IM status may be represented by a particular icon, text color or font. An active user may have a green icon next to his name whereas an offline user may have a gray icon. Typical IM status settings are: “active, “away”, “do not disturb”, “mobile”, and “offline”. A user can select a particular IM status. For example, the user may select “do not disturb” while he is using his computer for a customer presentation, and then select “active” when the presentation is completed. Alternately, the IM system may use techniques such as detecting keyboard and mouse activity to determine if the user is active. If activity is not detected for some predetermined amount of time the system could automatically set the user to “away”.
The user-provided message can contain additional information about the particular user. This message may be user-customized, or selected from a list provided by the system. The message can be typed each time the user sets his status, or a unique message can be associated with a particular status. From the buddy list, one can view a user's message in various ways. For example, the message may be displayed next to the user's ID when the cursor is moved to hover over the ID.
While the buddy list information is somewhat helpful, its accuracy and content are limited. The user's status is set manually by the user, or automatically based on limited data. Additionally, the status is an indication of only the user's IM status—not his in-person availability, phone availability, or status via any other communications means. The user-provided message is also limited in that it typically contains only minimal or generic information (e.g., “I'm busy right now”). It would be advantageous to include more detailed information in the message such as the user's return date and time, and how the person might best be contacted at this time. Providing this level of detail manually would require additional user maintenance and the information would easily become outdated.
A similar set of problems is found with status boards. A status board can be a physical board or an online tool that is used by a group of users to indicate status information. The status information typically includes a person's in-person status (e.g., “out of the office”), destination, return date and time, and backup person. The physical status board is usually a centrally-located whiteboard that users update with their current status information by using a dry-erase marker. The online version allows the users to update their status from a computer or other electronic device.
Status boards are limited in that they typically require a person to manually update his status. The physical status board is additionally limited in that it can only be updated by someone physically at that location. As with the information provided by the IM system, status board information usually provides only a narrow view of a person's availability; it does not typically include a person's availability via office phone, cell phone, pager, and so forth. Additionally, the physical status board is restricted by the amount of space allocated for each person.
Therefore, a need exists for a method, system, and product that provide dynamically-updated enhanced contact information for instant messaging systems and electronic status boards.